Survival Quotes - Page 19

• The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious viciousness toward its own kind. Humanization was not a leap forward but a groping toward survival.

  Eric Hoffer

  Men, Kind, Evolution

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• Evolution is the law of policies: Darwin said it, Socrates endorsed it, Cuvier proved it and established it for all time in his paper on The Survival of the Fittest. These are illustrious names, this is a mighty doctrine: nothing can ever remove it from its firm base, nothing dissolve it, but evolution.

  Mark Twain

  Science, Law, Names

  Mark Twain, David Ketterer (1984). “The science fiction of Mark Twain”

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• Five per cent vision is better than no vision at all. Five per cent hearing is better than no hearing at all. Five per cent flight efficiency is better than no flight at all. It is thoroughly believable that every organ or apparatus that we actually see is the product of a smooth trajectory through animal space, a trajectory in which every intermediate stage assisted survival and reproduction.

  Richard Dawkins

  Science, Animal, Space

  Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.96, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It is with our entire past ... that we desire, will and act ... from this survival of the past it follows that consciousness cannot go through the same state twice. The circumstances may still be the same, but they will act no longer on the same person ... that is why our duration is irreversible.

  Henri Bergson

  Science, Past, Desire

  Henri Bergson (2014). “Creative Evolution”, p.13, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Species do not grow more perfect: the weaker dominate the strong, again and again- the reason being that they are the great majority, and they are also cleverer. Darwin forgot the mind (-that is English!): the weak possess more mind. ... To acquire mind, one must need mind-one loses it when one no longer needs it.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Strong, Science, Perfect

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• This preservation of favourable variations and the destruction of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Would Be, Variation

  Charles Darwin (1869). “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, p.92

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• Why do some die and some live? The answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies, the strongest, swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain-that is, the fittest would survive.

  Alfred Russel Wallace

  Science, Race, Self

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• Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.

  Carl Sagan

  Loyalty, Spring, Cosmos

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, 1980.

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• With the ministry's motto 'Research on a Shoestring' emblazoned on his coat of arms, he has to struggle with a treasury more interested in surtax relief than national survival. [Responding to an earlier statement by British Science Minister, Lord Hailsham, that British scientists were being recruited by the U.S.]

  Harold Wilson

  Struggle, Science, Relief

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• I don't think of myself as a terribly confident person. But I have a survival mechanism that was instilled in me by my mother.

  Naomi Watts

  Inspiring, Mom, Mother

  "Motherhood Quotes from the Pages of ELLE". www.elle.com. May 11, 2012.

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• Compassion and love is the source of external and internal peace and is also the root of racial survival.

  Dalai Lama

  Buddhist, Love Is, Compassion

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• We need artists to help us come together and share our voices and build community around powerful issues concerning our roles in the world and our planet's survival. Compassion must be translated into action.

  Natasha Mayers

  Teamwork, Powerful, Creativity

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• It has become accepted doctrine that we must attempt to study the whole man. Actually we cannot study even a whole tree or a whole guinea pig. But it is a whole tree and a whole guinea pig that have survived and evolved, and we must make the attempt.

  Gardner Murphy

  Science, Men, Pigs

  Gardner Murphy (1947). “Personality”

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• The crisis of our diminishing water resources is just as severe (if less obviously immediate) as any wartime crisis we have ever faced. Our survival is just as much at stake as it was at the time of Pearl Harbor, or the Argonne, or Gettysburg, or Saratoga.

  Jim Wright

  Rain, Rivers, Water

  Jim Wright (1966). “The Coming Water Famine”, New York : Coward-McCann

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• Survival is not possible if the best of us lack all conviction, while the worst of us are full of passionate intensity.

  John Silber

  Carpe Diem, Passionate, Conviction

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• No coward soul is mine.

  Emily Bronte

  Adventure, Soul, Coward

  "Last Lines" l. 1 (1846)

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• There is enough for everyone to have what they need without exploitation. Adequate distribution of resources, including education, without violence can lead to a sustainable system that doesn't stress the ecosphere. Alternately, continued violence feeds population surges and hoarding the products of exploitative extraction, which endanger the survival of our species. In short, if we want a future with humans on Earth, we've got to stop war.

  Vern Huffman

  War, Stress, Hoarding

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• Nature's stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest.

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  War, Mutual Help, Discipline

  Theodosius Dobzhansky (1962). “Mankind Evolving: The Evolustion of the Human Species”

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• It is a very grave matter to be forced to imitate a people for whom you know-which is the price of your performance and survival-you do not exist. It is hard to imitate a people whose existence appears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude that they are not, thank heaven, you.

  James A. Baldwin

  Gratitude, People, Justice

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• Both class and race survive education, and neither should. What is education then? If it doesn't help a human being to recognize that humanity is humanity, what is it for? So you can make a bigger salary than other people?

  Beah Richards

  Education, Race, Class

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• The primary threat to nature and people today comes from centralising and monopolising power and control. Not until diversity is made the logic of production will there be a chance for sustainability, justice and peace. Cultivating and conserving diversity is no luxury in our times: it is a survival imperative.

  Vandana Shiva

  Luxury, Justice, Diversity

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• The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

  Bill Frist

  Congratulations, Our World, Land

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• Survival's the thing, isn't it?

  Janet Morris

  Determination

  Janet Morris (1989). “Tempus Unbound”, Pocket Books

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• War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, War, Matter

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• Intelligence is a valuable thing, but it is not usually the key to survival. Sheer fecundity ... usually counts. The intelligent gorilla doesn't do as well as the less intelligent but more-fecund rat, which doesn't do as well as the still-less-intelligent but still-more-fecund cockroach, which doesn't do as well as the minimally-intelligent but maximally-fecund bacterium.

  Isaac Asimov

  Intelligent, Keys, Cockroaches

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